Bel Soggiorno

We had to spend the first night elsewhere, and getting around caused a lot of trouble for the rest of the stay. The hotel that took us in was kind, but it was three metro stops from Termini, so we had to keep taking the metro and paying for it to reach the restaurants and attractions we'd booked near the original hotel. That first evening, the G20 summit had shut down all metro and public transport, so we had to take a taxi. When we called to explain, they didn't apologize. They told us to have a coffee and wait for the metro to reopen, even though it wouldn't open again until the next day, or said we'd have had the same G20 inconvenience if we'd been staying there. That didn't make sense, since from the booked hotel we could have walked. They were rude and arrogant, and even hung up on us. We'd booked through Booking.com in September for the All Souls' Day weekend, which overlapped with Rome's G20 summit. The central location was the reason we'd chosen it, so we could get around without public transport, and we'd made restaurant and other nearby attraction reservations. A couple of days before arriving, I messaged through the Booking.com app to ask about leaving our bags on arrival and checking in later, and gave our arrival time. The property replied in English and said that was fine. The day before arrival, my payment card was declined. I updated the details and it was declined again. At 7:00 a.m. on arrival day I asked the property why, since I'd never had trouble with this card, which is linked to my Intesa San Paolo bank account and isn't prepaid. They didn't reply. When we got there, Mr. Enzo was certainly kind, and I don't think he caused the problem. He told us the hotel didn't trust us because the card had been declined and thought we might not show up. Despite my earlier messages and luggage request, they'd given our room to another woman shortly before we arrived, at 10:30 am. I can only guess that, with so many tourists around, they preferred a last-minute customer who might pay more than my booking, made over a month earlier at a lower price. Who knows. NOT RECOMMENDED.